If You Had Your Obedience Dog Again

[RallyValley]

Ok. So I have Lincoln and he knows focus and showing stuff. He is pretty much a blank canvas and I am going to treat him like one. My initial thought was to teach him stationary heeling positions (fronts and finishes), then heeling exercises (sit, down and stand) then teach him the actual heeling with very short patterns focusing on teaching the turns.

After that is when you would start teaching the rest of the exercises (SFE, dumbell ect). Is that a totally stupid plan? You know you want to educate me from your mistakes and or really good ideas

Edited September 14, 2010 by valleyCBR

[sas]

Master the basics - that's would I would do instead of having a dog that knows lot's of things but doesn't do them all really well.

If it were me, I'd do the sit and drop, stay, heel position (long on-going work) and then the more complex things but would hit myself every time I tried to move on without it being mastered.

[ness]

I don't think it seriously matters what you teach so long as you break it down for the dog into manageable bits.

Kenz learned to hold a dumbbell/article as a baby at the same time she was learning to set up at heel and sit and drop. Not all in the one session obviously. She started doing some dog in a box work/sendaway work at maybe 14 weeks.

Agree though about breaking up the heelwork into fragments and working on each fragment separately before combining it. So work on LAT/RAT turns separately and also short sections of heelwork with a sit or a drop or a stand before adding to that.

Scent work and gloves are both also fun to teach once you have a dog doing a reliable retrieve .

Edited September 14, 2010 by ness

[Kavik]

I would teach my dog to send to a target/reward at a distance. Would make getting rewards off my person so much easier and keep up motivation for work. Works great for agility too but my obedience dog is not so great at the sending.

[Ptolomy]

I teach holding dumbbell and scent early, and then revist when I need it - the dogs don't seem to forget and it makes moving forward much quicker than having to start from scratch.

[RubyStar]

Attention on me, attention on me, oh and ATTENTION ON ME is what I would be teaching first if I had my time again

[Bully]

Attention on me, attention on me, oh and ATTENTION ON ME is what I would be teaching first if I had my time again

Absolutely! I worked on "watch" from the day Pele came home at 8 weeks and she gives beautiful attention

[RallyValley]

Total ididot question but how does one begin to teach scent discrimination?

[Ptolomy]

http://dogscouts.org/Dog_Activ-_Scent_Discrim.html

[RallyValley]

http://dogscouts.org/Dog_Activ-_Scent_Discrim.html

Thats awesome! My dad wants me to teach one of the dogs to find golf balls so that after his practice in the back paddock the dog can help him find them instead of his numbers of balls shirnking each week . Might use my tester dog (i.e Toby) and have a go at teaching some of this stuff to see if I can do it. And in the meantime do dumbells with Lincoln. ;)

[huski]

Scent discrim is heaps of fun to train!

I would start by building drive and focus and nothing much else until I had that where I wanted it and the dog really knows how the game works.

I would also teach backend awareness very early on as I think this really helps to train a good heel position.

[RallyValley]

Lincoln has a lot of drive and focus naturally and it's pretty much all he has had done up to this point (9 months). He will work happily for praise or toys and get super hyped working for food. So it's getting the obidience stuff down pat that I am thinking of now.

Just an example of his focus- walking from the far end of the dog pavillion to outside the ring at the Adelaide royal I was able to have him close by my side looking at me from verbal encouragement alone there were 100's of people in the pavillion and dogs walking everywhere. So I am pretty pleased with where he is at and looking to move on to the next step.

[kathq]

That food is not the only possible reward.. Learnt the hardway with Pip.

Oh yeah and learning to learn..

[RubyStar]

Oh yeah and learning to learn..

+1. Lots of shaping games armed with clicker and loads of treats. Makes teaching something new so much easier when a dog knows how to offer behaviours as they have learnt to learn!

[Staranais]

Agree with hind end awareness, focus, heel position, front position, heeling turns, & learning to learn.

I tend to teach things in little drips & drabs. Obedience isn't my main focus, so we just do whatever seems interesting whenever I feel like a 10 minute clicker session. But we have great basics & are 80% there with our dumbbell retrieve, drop on recall, etc, so we must be doing something right. Little games really help keep it fun & make them understand IMO, we do things like heeling between my legs, flipping between heel position on the left & right side, finding front position when my back is turned towards her, doing a DOR and then running backwards after she has dropped, etc.

[Sue & Waldo]

I think I'd teach myself to be a better handler and catch up with my dog.

[RallyValley]

I think I'd teach myself to be a better handler and catch up with my dog.

I also think this is the most important thing too! Which is why I am soooo lucky to be able to have handling practice with Ptolomys kids

[megan_]

I'd focus on building problem solving and not care about the actual end result and tricks/obedience moves. So lots of free shaping and problem solving games.

[Zug Zug]

I agree with lots of what is above.

I would do a lot more work on stays than I did, and probably get her picking up different objects earlier (including metal).

I would like to think I would concentrate more on getting the basics really solidly in place before moving on, but knowing my nature I would get bored with too much repetition...

[Sue & Waldo]

I think I'd teach myself to be a better handler and catch up with my dog.

I also think this is the most important thing too! Which is why I am soooo lucky to be able to have handling practice with Ptolomys kids

WA is so far away though :D